(Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in a two-part series on the Catholic Church’s former orphan adoption program and the individuals it relocated to Steubenville between 1950 and 1970. The first installment appeared in the Sunday edition.)

STEUBENVILLE — Operating from roughly 1950 to 1970, the Vatican’s adoption program sought to relocate Italian children orphaned by World War II to new homes, particularly in the U.S. The program is estimated to have relocated about 3,700 children, many of whom were not actually orphans but the children of unwed mothers who could not care for them.

Italian-American journalist Maria Laurino describes the program in her newly published book “The Price of Children,” which she crafted using thousands of archival documents and personal testimonies from birth mothers, as well as their children who went through the program.

Laurino’s research identified two communities where the Vatican sent children in disproportionately higher numbers, relative to their populations. One of those two was Steubenville, which saw about 30 Italian children adopted by resident families in what Laurino calls the “Steubenville cluster.”

Decades later, those adoptees have grown and, through various means, are coming to realize the extent of the program they were subject to. Now each of those adoptees is grappling with the past in his or her own way.

Picking up the pieces

Born in Italy in 1965, Mary B. Relotto was adopted by a Steubenville family when she was 2 years old, along with her 9-month-old brother. Her adoptive parents were in a struggling marriage, Relotto recalled, and her father thought having children would solve the issue.

However, with Relotto being a toddler who spoke no English, the experience left Relotto’s adoptive mother in worse shape.

“A couple of months before she died … I asked her about what it was like when I first came here,” Relotto said. “She wanted to be really happy for me, but she couldn’t be because she thought I was too old to be here. … A sad mother doesn’t really connect with a sad daughter.”

Relotto had always known she and her brother were adopted. Her adoptive parents had even turned down accepting another of Relotto’s siblings from Italy, though they promised to let the three unite one day, which they did once all had turned 18.

In 1992, Relotto traveled to Italy to meet her biological family members. She met most of them right away, including her mother, whose story she learned.

Anna Maria — who chose to keep her last name confidential — was raised in an abusive household and knew only how to use her body, so she became a prostitute. She didn’t have “a piece of bread to give us” and so put three of her children up for adoption, Relotto said.

Six of Anna Maria’s other children had stayed in an Italian foster care program, though another was “stolen.” At 8 months old, Relotto said, the boy had been placed in an institution while Anna Maria recovered in a hospital from an illness. When she did recover, the institution claimed her son had died but couldn’t provide death or burial records. In reality, he had been placed for adoption 30 minutes away.

Upon being interviewed by Laurino, Relotto first learned the truths behind the Vatican’s adoption program — unwed mothers supposedly being pressured to give up their children and having them scrubbed from records to prevent them from imparting perceived vices on the adoptees.

“I was blown away with what (Laurino) uncovered,” Relotto said. “These women were subjected to shame and sexualization. I think about my birth mother, and I think about all the other mothers, and I just feel bad for them because all they wanted was help to manage their families, and instead they were lied to.”

Relotto, who lives in Columbus, now enjoys a “great relationship” with Anna Maria and has dual citizenship through birth, something other adoptees struggle to obtain because of deficient records.

Backtracking

Also 2 years old at his adoption, Marco Meyo arrived in Steubenville July 5, 1959. He had “awesome” adoptive parents, with his father later being the best man in his wedding.

Meyo’s adoption was no secret in the family. His adoptive mother even brought the 15-year-old Meyo to Steubenville’s Catholic Charities — which had facilitated his placement — to inquire about his biological mother, whose name had been removed from the birth certificate.

“The nun told me pretty much to quit looking. My mother died at childbirth,” he recalled. “I went from feelings of abandonment … to an additional feeling of guilt because I felt that I had killed my mother.”

In 2003, Meyo connected with John Campitelli, an Italian adoptee whose online Webpage sought to connect fellow adoptees with their pasts. Campitelli said that claims of a birth mother’s death might be a hoax, meant to deter adoptees from seeking the truth. Meyo also learned that his last name — Santelli, which was on his birth certificate and passport — was itself a red herring, having been assigned to him by the Italian government.

It took until 2021 for Meyo to discover that his birth mother was alive, though she “wouldn’t accept that she had a baby at that time.”

Meyo continues to search for other relatives in Italy. He took a “pilgrimage” last year, during which he visited the place of his birth, the church he was baptized in and the orphanage he briefly inhabited. That, compounded with the friendliness of locals, helped to provide some much-needed closure.

“I finally started going to a therapist about a month or so ago because (Laurino’s book) helped rip open a few more wounds,” said Meyo, who now lives in Akron. “It bugs you daily to think about it. I’m not sure if everyone’s like that.”

Looking forward

Born Gianfranco Aragno, John Mantica was adopted in 1959 by parents who’d always wanted a son named “John Francis,” so the pairing seemed fortuitous. Mantica’s father was a prominent doctor in Steubenville who had a major hand in establishing the former St. John Hospital.

Although unaware of the Vatican’s orphan program, Mantica did know some other local adoptees. His father even treated a young Meyo, who suffered lingering effects from malnutrition as an infant.

A 38-year resident of Cape Coral, Fla., Mantica discovered Campitelli’s Webpage in 2017 — the encounter that spurred Laurino, his cousin, to write “The Price of Children.” While Mantica found Campitelli’s information fascinating, it never affected him personally.

Rather, Mantica considers himself “the luckiest man in the world” due to his upbringing in Steubenville and educational opportunities at Catholic Central High School, Marietta College and Franciscan University of Steubenville. Mantica said he’s satisfied with the life he has, considering it could’ve been wildly different if he had stayed in Italy — which he does visit on occasion.

Even when it comes to ancestry tracing services, Mantica would rather not open Pandora’s Box. The only notion he has about his parents is a rumor that at least one was an artist or possibly in the medical field.

“I’m pretty confident my life is much, much better being in the United States and growing up in Steubenville,” Mantica said. “I don’t obsess about it, and it doesn’t keep me up at night. I’m hopeful that the Catholic Church and my birth mother did the right thing and were honest with each other.”

Laurino said it’s “fabulous” that her cousin and some others feel satisfied with their adoption experiences and aren’t compelled to explore their history, but she acknowledged that not all adoptees feel the same.

“Being an adoptee is a very singular experience,” Laurino said. “Some adoptees want to search for their past — they believe that first chapter is very important — and others don’t want to look into that. … (For some), it’s a hole in their heart — this piece of never quite belonging.”